


Our Wandering Selves

by fondofit



Series: As the Universe Dictates [2]
Category: BioShock, BioShock Infinite
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-25
Updated: 2014-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-16 23:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1365184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fondofit/pseuds/fondofit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's better to travel with a companion. Of this they are certain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prior to the First Stop

**Author's Note:**

> So, I ended up continuing this little crossover. This fic will most likely be made up of drabbles. We'll see where else this may go!

The first time Elizabeth holds his hand there is a definitely spark of electricity that shoots between their fingertips. She twitches her hands back in surprise not expecting there to have been any sort of reaction. Jack looks apologetic and mumbles something that sounds like it could be “Sorry,” but it comes out in an incomprehensible moan. Elizabeth realizes that it wasn’t something she could have avoided. The man was full of different types of plasmids, and not unlike the Shock Jockey from her universe, Jack had Electro Bolt flowing through his veins. She could feel the side of her mouth pull into a half-grin amused that maybe this was how it was supposed to end. A bunch of mismatched actions and emotions from two people who were so out of touch with a reality they were thrust into.

So instead, she goes for his hand again and their fingers link lightly. Holding each other’s weight for the rest of the evening as they watch the stars twinkle above the lighthouse they decided to rest at.

\---

Jack only vaguely remembers the first time he had met the Luteces. It had been after Elizabeth had dragged his broken body back away from the dead Frank Fontaine. His vision was a blurry mess, but he could make out two figured with similar features speaking in similar tones. 

“So, you’ve finally met him?” Says the female blob of cream and red.

“Well, a version of him.” Echoes the male one. “Not in the best shape either. More’s the pity.”

He feels Elizabeth shift under his head. Had she put his head in her lap? The feeling of exhaustion and ache pulses through his body, so he makes no attempt to move. He had thought he had been dreaming. He’d realizes not too much later that most of his dreams had been reality.

“I’m going to take him with me.” Elizabeth’s voice reverberates all around him. 

“You are not like us, you know.” The female says, her arms crossing in front of her body. She’s not quite challenging Elizabeth’s logic, but Jack feels a hand brush against his forehead and rest over his eyes. He’s thankful for the darkness. The blurry light was beginning to give him a headache and he closes his eyes.

Jack feels something poking his side, it makes his muscles burn and the echo of the voicebox coming from his throat awkwardly announces to everyone that he’s still conscious. 

“I do hope you’re not thinking we would be able to do much to help him.”

“Not at all.” Elizabeth says, her voice strong and defiant. Jack can’t help but feel like he’s the stray puppy a child wants to convince their parents to keep. “He’s like me, in a way. I can’t leave him here. We need to be free of.. this.”

She says that last word with such vehemence that Jack just wonders what exactly she was trying to get them away from.

“From the looks of it, he was well on his way to becoming free.” The woman’s voice came from above him. She must have moved closer, leaning over his broken self.

“He’s helped save the girls and I can help everyone break free.”

The male pokes him again, earning another groan to escape his broken vocal cords.“You know, I wonder if he’d age the same? It’d be interesting to see how he’d turn out, wouldn’t it?”

“We’re not experiments, you know.” Elizabeth’s bristing. Jack can tell by the way her legs tense up slightly and the slight shake that makes her hand twitch.

“No, not anymore.” The woman says as if that was the end of the argument. “If you’ve already set your mind to it, I suppose we have no choice.”

Jack feels Elizabeth sigh in relief. He’s not sure what’s going on, but he knows in his heart he’s grateful.


	2. A Dip in the Clouds

“Columbia was beautiful once.” Elizabeth says with a wry smile. “Or it was on the outside. There were beaches amongst the clouds and the venues were picturesque. Not like Paris, but beautiful in it’s own way. Just like Rapture was.”

She notices Jack nod out of the corner of her eye and takes that as her cue to continue.

“Plasmids, vigors… they’re the same, but different. Constants and variables. The Luteces weren’t apart of your Rapture, but they made themselves a sort of an anomaly.” She sighs as she leans forward against the stone railing that encircles the lighthouse. She’s pulled back her hair now, and gone was the mask of makeup that she wore around Rapture. Jack doesn’t fully understand her, she knows, but she’s patient with him and he’s all the more thankful for it. “There are times I wish we could also be that anomaly. Though, I’m sure the other ‘Elizabeths’ out there feel the same.”

Jack nods. His throat doesn’t burn with pain anymore, but he doesn’t speak, he doesn’t dare. A version of Steinman had been paid handsomely. The man wasn’t beyond back alley deals when it benefited him in the end. He did what he could, but the voice box modification was irreversible. Jack would never speak again and, the more he thought about it, he didn’t mind. Not when he could communicate with the only person that really mattered through gestures.

“We should see one of the Columbias. At least once.”

Jack nods again and puts his hand over hers in agreement.

“Your hands are like ice.”

Jack automatically jerks his hand away, but Elizabeth laughs and goes to tug it back down. He feels his body change with the swapping of plasmids, the Winter Blast turning to Telekinesis, warming the tips of his fingers with normal body warmth. Her smile stays as she links their hands together once again and Jack grins back in relief.

\---

Elizabeth winces at the sound of a shotgun going off too close to her head for her own piece of mind. The ringing echoes throughout her head as a hand wraps itself around her wrist and pulls her from harms way. They had made it to Columbia, finally and unfortunately, without the Lucteces’ blessings.

She could hear their protests and “I told you sos’ in the back of her mind, but she didn’t care. Not when she made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. She and Jack planned to meet up with them back at the their Lab before the next morning. That was part of the deal.

What she hadn’t expected what being held at gunpoint almost immediately after finding their bargaining chip.

Before the chaos, Jack’s initial reaction to Columbia was one of awe. The sky was drowned in the pinks, oranges and reds of a sunset, the atmosphere completely different than the blues and greens of a dark ocean that engulfed Rapture. Elizabeth grinned, happy to have shown him something impressive, and she linked her arm in his. They had changed their clothing to fit in. They would need to in order to get around with little issue. 

She had told Jack that she would not have normally shown him Finkton, but they needed to go there for what they needed to get. It had been so simple, making it from the docking station to the labs without any sign of danger. She knew she should have known better, but she had wanted to show Jack someplace different. A place that wasn’t a version of Rapture for once.

She was ushered behind him as he swung a wrench he had grabbed from a dying gear jockey on the ground. He brought a hand forward and a sudden burst of wind flew from his outstretched palm, causing the men and women who surrounded them to fly back. They didn’t wait for a reaction, as Jack grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and began pulling her to their waiting ship.

She pulled ahead of him just slightly as they came to the dock. She was about to jump aboard when she noticed Jack wasn’t with her. He was facing the oncoming onslaught of guards, his skin mottled with welts. Her stomach dropped as she witnessed a burst of blood come from his right shoulder. 

She was about to call to him, to make him move away when her voice caught in her throat. a cloud of bees seemed to have manifested itself out of nowhere and attack the oncoming individuals. She almost couldn’t believe her eyes and stared as Jack turned away from the horrified screams of the bees’ victims.

Their return ride back was an awkward one, the welts and bees running over Jack’s body made Elizabeth cringe, but she ripped a bit of the hem of her skirt and began to put pressure on Jack’s injury.

“You didn’t need to do that.”

Jack shrugged and changed the plasmid running through his system to something more palatable. 

By the time they had made it to the Labs, Rosalind had been engrossed in examining a chart, while Robert looked over the Tear machine. They both turned simultaneously at their arrival each scientist holding out a hand in expectation. Elizabeth gave the small sheet of paper to Robert and the Voxophone to Rosalind. After the twins were assuredly satisfied, Elizabeth left Columbia with a heavy heart and a warm hand tightly linked with hers.


	3. Treading Water

There were places that Jack wanted to show Elizabeth in Rapture. It was weird, that a man who had no recollection of his past could have so many memories of peaceful places within such a horrible city. Especially with such a short time of being there. So he decides to make a day of it and takes her to the Fighting McDonagh’s. With a feeling of excitement and anticipation he can’t remember feeling before, he places a bar stool for Elizabeth in front of the large window and pulls one for himself to join hers. The water in the background is calming and she sits and watches the ocean outside in silence, glancing in his direction every now and then though he can’t fathom why. They hear the echoes of splicers from vents and the hallways every now and then, but neither move and settle in as part of the scenery. He feels at home here.

*

Jack brings her to the Tea Garden in Arcadia and let’s her discover the area for herself. He avoids the benches, remembering ghosts of the past. He hasn’t had a vision of ghosts since leaving Rapture. Jack had enough of the past, so he follows Elizabeth into Waterfall Grotto and grins when she comes upon the roses growing in the midst of the rubble and overgrown plants. 

“Are you trying to woo me with flowers and tiptoeing through the garden?” Elizabeth quips with a smirk and a laugh in her voice as she takes his arm and they walk through the Glens. 

Jack almost trips over his own feet and Elizabeth’s laugh echoes throughout the empty paths. She pats his arm and leads him ahead, down the glowing path, avoiding a large, lumbering Big Daddy as he walks by and tries to call for a Little Sister by their vent. The hand ticked in his arm tenses as they keep moving.

*

“Have I ever told you about Songbird?”

Elizabeth is walking ahead of him into Kashmir. The place is still a mess, Jack knows, but here they have a beautiful view of the ocean. They sit with their toes dipping in the water pooled around the large statue that overlooks most of the room. Behind them, the floor creaks with lack of use, water drips from all around, but Jack is silent and waits for Elizabeth to go on at her own pace.

She lets her left leg push the water, dirty as it may be, and watches the ripples glide from her movement to Jack and across the pool.

“Songbird was…” She pauses in thought as Jack looks away to watch as fish swim by outside past the neon lights. “Songbird was the one thing that tried to protect me in Columbia. It was mine, as I was theirs.”

Her eyes never moved from watching the water and she let out a shaky sigh before continuing.  
“I cared for it as a friend, but it was more like a guardian, I guess. The only friend I had before I escaped. Sometimes, I even think it was the only friend I had before I met you.” Jack watches as her lips twitch up into a smile for a moment and he feels more at ease. He had never really thought to put a name to their relationship, but friends seemed as correct as it could be. “In the end, he died protecting me. He went with me through a tear into this place. He was outside in the ocean and the water pressure…” 

Her voice trails off and Jack holds out his hand. She takes it with a light touch, He can hear the catch in her breath as she tries to gather herself. He wonders if she had time to mourn it. If there was a time to actually slow down stop for a while to mentally catch up. He doesn’t think he really has had the time for himself, even while being with Elizabeth. After a moment, she squeezes his hand and then stands up shaking off her legs of the excess water before putting her heels back on.

She takes one more deep breath and holds her hand out to him. 

“Come on. Let’s get a move on.”

\---

Jack knows she dreams about a man named “Booker.” The first time he had heard the name was when they took a Bathysphere for themselves to rest for a bit. They would be relatively safe inside as long as the door stayed closed. The cushioned seats were comfortable and now and then a soft Django Reinhardt tune would crackle through the radio’s airwaves. Elizabeth was curled onto one side and he on the other.

He couldn’t sleep, not when everytime he closed his eyes he would see the bleeding face of Andrew Ryan yelling, “A SLAVE OBEYS.” Sometimes he would wake up right then, other times his dream self would beat the husk of his father until the voice was so damaged he couldn’t hear it anymore. This particular dream had Ryan’s bloody face, golf club stuck in his head and all, screaming in his face, shaking him into consciousness. 

Jack had woken with a gasp, his damaged throat constricting the amount of noise he could make. His eyes wild as he tries to calm himself down and take in his surroundings. His gaze settles on Elizabeth and he focuses on her in order to steady his breathing. He watches her sleep, her face serene, almost childlike in her dreams. 

Then her face twists into a frown and as she shifts in her sleep he hears a murmured “Booker.” 

Jack wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare. She didn’t wake with a start, but she did up up having a headache when she woke. 

To date, she had spoken of this Booker in her dreams at least a dozen times. All of these times took place while she was asleep. Jack wanted to ask. If there was one thing he wanted to know about her, it was who Booker was and why he (or she? It could have been a last name for all he knew) was worth dreaming about.

He was determined to bring it up during normal conversation. He didn’t want to put pressure on her, but curiosity was winning out over his conscience. So during an evening watching the starry night sky in front of one of the thousands of lighthouses he motions for her to watch him. Jack draws a capital “B” on the concrete, hoping she’d get the hint.

“A ‘B’? What about ‘b’?”

Jack starts writing the the following letters, but before he can get to the final “R,” Elizabeth puts her hand atop of his. She’s shaking, he notices, and suddenly he’s worried he was asking too much. 

“Booker, right? You wondering about Booker?”

Jack bobs his head into a slow nod, wondering if she’ll go on. Her expression looks pained, like thinking about this person hurts her in some way that Jack can’t see. He’s about to motion that whatever or whoever this is, that it doesn’t matter, but is cut off by a bitter laugh coming from Elizabeth. 

“I-- With him, I don’t really know where to begin. All of this, everything you see here sort of begins and ends with him.” She stops and looks out to the water rushing around them, the calm waves echoing in the night air, the noise is almost deafening. “In short, he was my friend, savior, captor and father all in one.”

Jack lets the words sink into his mind, Elizabeth pausing before she continues, “He’s the reason why I have this.” She holds up her pinky finger for him to see, the silver thimble shining in the lighthouse’s glow. “He’s the reason why tears exist and why I exist as I am.”

She sighs and grabs his arm, pulling him closer for comfort. He let’s her trying not to tense up from the contact. He indulges her this time, but neither like touching each other much other than hand holding.

“I can’t tell if everything that happened to you if because of us, too. I mean, I’m not trying to sound conceited, but there are too many similarities for it to be a coincidence.” She holds his arm close, murmuring into the knotted fabric of his sweater, “You aren’t me and I’m not you.Yet here were are the products of our Father’s ambitions.”

Jack can tell there’s more to the story, more to what she’s trying to understand, but instead of asking further, he slowly pulls her in and wraps his other arm around her. They stay like that for a long while before they decide to sit at the foot of the lighthouse’s large doors and fall asleep.


	4. Down in the Briney

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Getting into Burial At Sea Part 2, so just a warning for spoilers ahead.

Her head is bleeding and Jack has resorted to taking off his sweater to try to staunch the blood flowing from her wound. It’s a horrible mess and Elizabeth is slumped to the ground, leaning against the wall breathing deep as she tries not to panic. She had been in the middle of an anecdote when she stopped and physically shuddered. Jack hadn’t noticed the blood until she had brought a hand to her head and it came away with her fingertips sticky, warm and red. Her legs gave out from under her and fell to her side like a ragdoll, but luckily Jack was fast enough to keep her from dropping to the ground.

He leaned her against the glass window, her body now framed by a dark ocean view. He looked her over, trying to find where she was injured, keeping an ear out for any roaming splicers. She gasped when his fingers hit moisture. The wound was fresh and horrible to the touch. He wasn’t any sort of medical expert, but he knew she needed attention and she needed it now.

He pulled the sweater over his head, thankful for the undershirt he wore to keep himself from freezing down here. The glass water tunnel’s air was cold, but he ignored the chill and held the sweater to her head. 

“It seems like,” Elizabeth’s voice was weak, but steady as she brought a hand to grip Jack’s wrist. “It’s seems like my choices are finally catching up to me.”

Jack shakes his head. He doesn’t understand, but he can feel her grip getting weaker.He can feel the panic start to set in. He tried to keep her focus on him, but he can see how hard it is for her to keep her eyes open. 

He can feel a tremor go through his hands as he realizes her breathing is becoming shallower with each breath. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, but he can’t lose her. Not like this.

The moment her eyes close, a voice comes from behind him.

“Well, this is disconcerting.”

Jack snaps his head to face it’s speaker, the grip on the bloody sweater in his hands becoming tense. The Luteces stand on either side of him, looking down at the both of them. He wants to plead with them to help, but he knows he’s fighting a losing battle. He feels his throat constrict against a whimper and he leans his head towards Elizabeth’s chest to try to hear a heartbeat.

The male voice cuts into the air, effectively dampening any signs of life Jack may have heard.

“Normally, the bleeding between universes don’t end like this.”

Jack turns to the both of them. He can feel the lump grow in his throat as his eyes are beginning to burn. He’s at a complete loss as to what happened and what to do next. Rosalind’s mouth is a grim twist, but she leans down to look at Elizabeth’s injury and hums to herself. Robert stays standing, waiting for his other-half’s conclusion.

“It seems that what happens to one, is beginning to affect the rest.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time something like this happened.”

Jack doesn’t want to move away from her, but her eyes are unfocused, blood shining in the dim light, he knows she’s gone. 

“You should come with us.”

Jack turns to Rosalind, who dusts her hands off on her camel colored skirt as she stands back. He looks back at Elizabeth and feels the burning behind his eyes all the hard to keep back, but he breathes in deep, a hitch in his air intake and stands to join them.

“We don’t expect you to understand, but we can take you to her. Not particularly this one.”

“But the others will understand once they see you.”

Jack nods and follows them leaving the Elizabeth he knew behind.

\---

Jack watches as Elizabeth talks to herself. There are two of her; one whose body has been smashed into a wall, dead eyes staring at the space behind the living version of herself. The living Elizabeth looks down at her dead doppelganger, trying to make sense of the situation.

“If I’m dead, then…”

Her shaky voice echoes throughout the ruins of the toy store. Jack wants to go to her, to stop her from seeing her own dead corpse, but instead he stays away to observe. He understands that this version of Elizabeth doesn’t know who he is or what had brought him here. So he sits back to think about how he could explain it to her, how to move forward. So that when she starts her journey further into Rapture, he follows behind like a shadow. 

When he hears Frank Fontaine’s voice for the first time, Jack can feel the rage pumping through his body. Elizabeth had become apart of Fonatine’s, no, _Atlas’s_ plans and by her response to him, she understand what that man is capable of and what will become of her. With an army of lost souls behind him, the man is nigh unstoppable, but since he had been banished into this underwater prison there was no way that he could return to Rapture. There was no way for the man to come back and take over the ruins of the city Andrew Ryan created.

There has to be a way to stop Elizabeth, this version of her had changed because of her decision to come to this Rapture, to end the life of her own ghost of a father. He had seen the body of the old man by the vent, if she hadn’t gone back to Rapture then… Jack shakes his head and keeps moving forward. 

He covers her back when he needs to, she can take care of herself, but sometimes the rebel splicers amongst Atlas’s men are a bit too overwhelming, so he takes out the ones nearest to him. Jack’s thankful for the Natural Camouflage tonic as he shoots his mark and keeps out of the way unseen by others. 

He’s at a loss when he loses sight of Elizabeth, wondering where in the world she had gone to. He travels to the different places, keeping out of sight as much as possible, but stops when he hears the voices of a couple of Atlas’s followers… She’d found Suchong. 

Jack finds the vent she used to get in and attempts to squeeze inside. It’s an extremely tight fit and he’s thankful that the father and mother he takes after are pretty run-of-the-mill in terms of size. Without his sweater his movements are anything but hampered, as he makes his way through while disarming the turrets with what little Eve he has. His body will run dry without the Eve intake, so when he runs into one of the bottles abandoned in Suchong’s lab, he makes a break for it.

As he takes a drink and ultimately regrets his decision as he feels a pinprick right between his shoulderblades. He was careless, he realizes as his vision goes from blurred to black.

This Elizabeth had found him.


	5. Darkness of the Deep

“I know you’re there.”

Jack can hear the shaky, but strong echoes of Elizabeth’s voice. He wants to speak to her and show that he means no harm, but his throat had been torn to ribbons months ago and his arms feel like two lead balloons right now. He breathes in deep and feels the drug of her dart take hold of his body.

The last thing he sees before he blacks out is the hesitant, but angry expression of Elizabeth as she leans over his prone body.

\---

Elizabeth is relieved once she sees the dart’s drug taking effect. The man had been following her for at least a good hour into her little mission for Atlas. Lord only knows how much longer he had been tailing her. She toes his side to make sure he’s out, then a slightly harder kick to the thigh just for a little revenge for following her for so long.

She leans down to get a good look at him. She can tell that he’s used plasmids, what with the pulsing glow of electricity running under his skin. She tries to listen for the telltale snoring of being knocked out, only to hear the wheeze of air flowing from his mouth instead. 

He definitely was not as glamorous as the other men around here. He’s modestly dressed with an almost homely look about him. Elizabeth looks to his hands, confused when she notices the weird tattoos peeking out from under his long sweater sleeves. She reaches towards his hand to get a better look.

A sharp shock runs through her arm as her vision blurs and a pulse of memories pulse through her head as she touches a palm. She sees his face, a lone passenger in what looks like a passenger plane. She knows she’s been there before, in these visions. She thinks about dropping his hand to the floor, but instead she grips his hand tighter in between hers and gets a better look at the tattoo markings.

Chains. 

She traces her fingertips across the black chain patterns and stops at the slow, but steady thumping of his pulse only barely recognizable in her loose grip. She allows his hand to fall from her hands to the cool tile below.

Its an impulse, Elizabeth thinks to herself, a stupid impulse that’d be better to ignore, but she doesn’t in the end. She listens for anyone nearby before cloaking herself with Peeping Tom. She grabs his arm and hefts him over her shoulders. 

He’s heavy, she feels his dead weight pushing down on her. Instead of dumping him to be left behind, she takes a deep breath, trying to calm the nervous excitement fluttering in her stomach as she moves the man’s body towards safety. His feet dragging on the floor behind them.

She has questions and he’s going to answer them.

Elizabeth somehow makes it to one of the enclosed offices in the back of the Bathysphere floor entrance. She drops the man’s hefty weight in front of the door as she opens it to take a look at what she needs to do to keep them safe.

After careful consideration and taking a deep breath, Elizabeth drags the man’s body in behind her. The only occupant in the small room was a dead man in an office chair. She pushes the corpse to the doors to use as a blockade against any outsiders who decided to come prowling around. She then takes a seat across from her captive and takes a better look at him in the light. In the brightness of the office lighting, he’s not bad on the eyes. Her mouth twista into a wry smile, but she notices that his face shows he’s seen better days. 

Her gaze travels downward, pausing on the mottled patch of scars that cover his throat. She takes a deep breath as she brings her own hand to her throat for a moment. She whispers, “how horrible,” before moving on. 

Part of her doesn’t understand why she’s brought him here, why she’s suddenly curious about this particular stalker. He could have been helping her for all she knew. He has no reason to know who she is and why she’s here. He has no real reason to help her.

She brings a hand to her head, feeling the pulse of a headache coming on. No, the feeling is sharper than a headache, but she closes her eyes all the same and breathes deep. There’s something about him that makes her feel at ease and sick at the same time.

“I hope you’re not a crazed spliced up murderer,” Elizabeth mutters as she feels exhaustion creep upon her. She sits on the opposite side of the room, watching and waiting as the man sleeps.

_“What would you do if he was?”_

Elizabeth rolls her eyes, she had been expecting Booker to show up at some point. Of course, he would choose to make his presence known now. 

“I can’t leave him behind.”

_“You don’t know or what he is.”_

“What do you mean by what he is?”

_“Elizabeth, he’s some strange guy who’s been following you since my unfortunate end. I’d be on your guard around him.”_

She looks at the man, a smile pulling the sides of her lips. “Can’t be any worse than the two of us though, could he?”

_“In this place? With these people? Who knows.”_

She feels her eyes slowly drift shut as Booker’s voice echoes out of existence. She can feel eyes upon her when she groggily wakes up from her unplanned nap. She stares back at him, waiting to see what his first action would be. He holds both his hands up in surrender, allowing her to take the first action.

So, she asks without much hesitation, “Who are you?”

The man seems a little surprised by the question and takes his time thinking of an answer. Elizabeth is on guard as she watches him sit up to grab a pen and a sheet of paper off the desk. He scribbles an answer hands the sheet it to her, motioning to his throat as she takes the note from him.

“Mute?”

He nods as he points to the message in her hand. She looks down at the paper and reads the short, scribbled message aloud.

“My future…” 

Elizabeth’s about to ask him what he means by that when she feels the pain in her head suddenly shoot across her vision. She can hear him scramble over to her, a noise in the back of his throat, trying to see what the problem is. Her eyes close in pain and she now somewhere else. She’s with him on the plane again, a gift in his lap as snuffed cigarette smoke dissipates above his head. She sees him stand and hold out a gun, the plane becoming a cacophony of panic and noise.

Then she is back in the present, her face being gently held in both of his hands, his forehead pressed against hers. She brings up a hand hand pats his cheek softly, signalling him to pull away.

“Thanks.” She says with a soft smile.

There is something that isn’t right about him being here, she realizes, just about as much as there is something wrong about her being here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work has been super busy these past few weeks! Hopefully, I'll be able to get a writing schedule or something down.


	6. We are Now Adrift

Jack holds Elizabeth’s hand as they look at her lifeless corpse. Another time, another reality. Her grip tightens as Sally peeks from behind her skirt to look at her dead savior. Jack had released the child from her ADAM-infused control and after a bit of coaxing, the girl had clung to Elizabeth for comfort throughout the whole ordeal. Elizabeth sighs deeply as she tugs at Jack’s hand and the trio turns away. 

 

Elizabeth is leading them away from her corpse, her hand never straying from Jack’s until they reach a bathysphere. She looks at him, her other hand wrapped around Sally’s small one as she has no intention of letting the girl go now, and asks, “What do we do now?”

 

Jack looks around them, Rapture is slowly becoming the shell of a culture and city that once was, beautiful in its own peculiar way. He has no love for Rapture. Everything he knew was a lie, his family is now (or will be) dead, the only one giving his life any meaning right now is Elizabeth. He makes a decision as he shrugs and gestures to the ceiling and then the bathysphere. 

 

The only way to go from down here was up.

 

\---

 

Jack’s arrival in Rapture is mirrored by his departure. They arrive on dry land far away from what either of Elizabeth or him would call civilization. The beach they wash up on has sand warmed from the day’s sun and a cold rush of water flowing onto shore. Sally sleeps soundly between the two of them as they watch the cool oranges and red meld into the oncoming blue of night.

 

Both have their bare feet buried in sand.

 

They don’t move from their spot until much later when the clouds finally block the stars in the night sky.

 

\---

 

They are spotted by a small fishing vessel only two days later.

 

Despite being stuck on the small shoreline, the fisherman states to the authorities days after the rescue, they looked pretty well off other than the grime of their clothing. The adults, he says, had a sort of glow to them. The whole situation was peculiar, he adds. The two adults especially.

 

The authorities never see the man or the woman. They’d left the young girl behind, her tears are a mix of happiness and sadness as she is introduced to her new foster mother. To the detectives, she speaks of “‘Lizabeth” and “Jack” and who they were to her. She speaks of her “sisters,” her friends who were just like her. She says they’ll be safe because they’ll be saved like how Jack saved her. The adults aren’t sure what to make of the girls stories, but they ask her for descriptions of the couple.The detectives make composite sketches from what she gives them and adds the fisherman’s testimonies in order to send them to the nearby precincts.

 

It’s four years later after their initial arrival to the surface when anyone recognizes them. Elizabeth is seen with her hair done up in pin curls, eating a pasty handed to her by a man who looks like the everyman of the 50s. He fits in with the locals with his off-white sweater and boots, while she stands out with her almost movie-star-esque glamour. The local who recognizes them is a elderly gentlemen, a man who had worked at the local police station for decades prior to his retirement last winter.

 

He tries to get their attention, losing sight of the couple as they turn a corner. He’s met with an empty alley and a few trash cans, the couple nowhere to be seen.

 

\---

 

Jack awakens to a soft kiss on his cheek and light ruffle of the hair on the top of his head. His eyes take their time adjusting to the brightness of the mid-morning sun. He watches as blurrily as Elizabeth walks away from his seat in the leather lounge chair towards a table covered with a white lace tablecloth. There are two cups of what smells like coffee set on top of it. It’s quaint, this place, but he knows this serenity is short lived. 

 

They’ll have to get moving again soon enough.

 

“Stop fretting over nothing and enjoy your coffee, you big galoot.”

 

Elizabeth has her cup in hand and sipping with a content smile over her own brew. She’s never been one to hold them back, she’s always looking ahead, Jack muses. He feels his tired body ache when he pushes himself up from the chair. It’s been five years since leaving Elizabeth’s dead self behind and they’ve started a routine of sorts. They try different coffees, visit small shops, enjoy the loud boisterous parades of several different cities, as well as the quiet museums and cultural centers. Each place is different, yet the same.

 

They never will completely leave behind the “constants and variables.”

 

Jack joins her at the table, standing instead of taking the empty seat. He knows deep inside of his bones that the rapid development of his body has something to do with the constant ache. He’s an adult in all definitions of the word, but he he’s not much older than Sally had been when he’d met her. His body yearns for Adam, much like Elizabeth’s will now and then, but they work through it. 

 

His left hand rests on the table as he leans against it, sipping his hot coffee. The nutty, heavy aroma fills his senses as he savors the flavor with a sip. Elizabeth’s free hand covers his and they sit in silence, taking comfort in the moment before time forces them to move again.

 

\---

 

They arrive in Rapture and no one takes note of them. Jack knows the cameras follow them, that they have access to anywhere in the city because of the blood that runs through his veins, but instead of running for their lives, they enjoy the time before the need for Little Sisters and Splicers. The whole place looks and smells new and full of promise. The meeting of great minds unfettered by the shackles of the stifling society of above.

 

Jack doesn’t know of any other place more comforting than Rapture. Though the word “comforting” might be a bit if a stretch. He always found Columbia to be a shock to the system. The location, the technology, the people… he could never find himself fitting in amongst them (Even though Elizabeth dressed him in one of the sharpest suits their money could buy and called him a vision to behold). He is always a bit anxious to go anywhere on his own in Columbia. He’s not agoraphobic, per se, but he could only take the outdoor stimulation for so long before he had a dire need to go indoors.

 

The wide open space does something to him that he does not like.

 

The surface did not instill the same sort of fear in him, but it did make him slightly uneasy. When they did visit, though, he would distract himself with his travel partner. He enjoyed watching Elizabeth try new foods and clothing that they could only partake of for so short a time. She visited places she always wanted to go to (Paris was a must). And it was interesting to see how much places had changed throughout time.

 

This version of Rapture was a comfort. A paradise before the coming of hell. 

 

Elizabeth’s arm is linked through his and she’s tugging him gently towards the bathysphere depot. “Come on, let’s go to the game room before someone thinks we’re loitering.” 

 

He follows her with a fond sigh and smile. People’s heads turn when they see his face, the scars of his damaged throat. He’s not a welcome visual sight, but he pays and has the aura of an electric eel, so no one tries to bother them. Ryan’s eye is on him; that Jack knows for a fact.

 

They enter Fort Frolic and make their way to Pharoah’s Fortune without incident. The casino is all bright neon lights  and noise that was made up of the machines and the laughter, frustration of people. Lots and lots of people. Elizabeth squeezes his arm as she pulls him in, smiling as she puts a Columbian coin in the first open slot machine she comes across. Jack’s surprised there isn’t a mechanism within the machine that would recognize the coin as being from the outside. They watch as the reels spin, Elizabeth’s hand gripping his sleeve in excitement. She yells out with a cheer when the bright lights on the machine let it be known to all that she was a winner. She takes Jack’s hat quickly as the coins begin to fall out of the machine. 

 

She is flushed and grinning from ear to ear when she turns to him and says, “Let’s gets a good meal and then call it a day?”   
  


Jack nods and they enjoy one of the best meals Rapture has to offer.

 

\---

 

Elizabeth is content with her life as it is now. It’s the first time she’s really felt like this, she muses, as she puts up her hair, tying a stylish scarf around her head. She is getting ready for a day in Rome. She feels that for the first time she is truly free of what kept her linked to her destiny. She doesn’t hate Booker for a lot of things she used to dwell on. It seems like so long ago that they don’t really matter at all now. 

 

That is, until she sees a glimpse of herself walking with Booker in Columbia. It’s one chance out of a million, but they are not 10 feet ahead of her and Jack. She can hear her voice call to him, talk to him… she remembers her trust in him. It takes Jack’s tug to realize she’s chasing after them. There are tears blurring her vision as she feels something break in her heart.

 

She watches as they walk away. Jack holds her hand in a tight grip, his arm coming around her shoulders in comfort to keep her grounded.

 

\---

 

They end up sleeping in a single bed for comfort. For Elizabeth, she likes the feeling of being wrapped in someone’s arms; the feeling of being warm, safe and loved. Jack likes the sense of someone being there, to know he’s not alone in the world and that someone wants him there for them. 

 

One evening, Elizabeth murmurs to Jack in a half-asleep daze, “I’m glad it was you who stayed with me.”

 

Jack looks towards her and pulls her closer, mimicking the sentiment.

 

They stay in the Columbian bed for as long as they can before they have to move on.

 

\---

 

This place is new to the both of them. Jack can feel that he’s been here before and Elizabeth voices his sentiment the moment they see the seaside town. It’s a quaint little town, with seamen and their families making up the majority of the residents. An island in the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean. They are both outsiders here, not that they haven’t felt like this before. Adapting to unfamiliar territory is nothing new to either of them.

 

The place smells of fish, not unlike the man-made docks of Fontaine Fisheries, but the smell was less concentrated. The smell of the sky, the rainstorm rolling in, even the open ocean make its a breathable smell. Elizabeth’s fine nose crinkles a bit when they see the newest catch of the day coming in from one of the smaller vessels, but Jack breathes it in, glad to be here rather than buried under the muck that Rapture was built upon. Jack ends up helping the men out for just a bit as Elizabeth watched from atop a few crate nearby. They spend the last few hours of their time sitting in an oceanside pub enjoying freshly baked bread with a thick cream stew made of white fish, scallops, onions and carrots. 

 

Jack has never been more satisfied.

 

\---

 

“Here, try this one.”

 

Elizabeth holds up a wine glass to his lips, smiling slightly as he sips the heady liquid. He makes a face and she laughs a little. She knows he was never that into wine, especially reds, but she thought he’d like to try at least a sip of the vintage they had been offered. 

 

It’s a cool April afternoon and they are in a small town within Burgundy, France. She’s not as impressed with Paris as she once was, though it will always hold a place in her heart. She tends to want to visit other places within France. She loves this country and she would like to think that she have lived here if things had been different. 

 

If things were different, she wouldn't be in this flux within time and space. She would never have met Jack and  this she would never give up for all of the French chateaux, landmarks and vineyards in the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been a while! I'm sorry this took so long to get out and, to be honest, I was planning on this to be the final chapter. I feel that I might keep it going with one more to finish it off nicely. I really appreciate all the kudos and such. It's really heartening to know that you all enjoy the story. Thank you!


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